Knowledge Is Power That We Don't Have

           Public education serves as a vital part of American society because the kids in school today are the doctors, politicians, police officers, teachers, and leaders of tomorrow.  The one special thing about American public education is its ability to give the opportunity to learn for all children.  However, not all public schools are producing successful students to better our society.  As the major superpower of the world one would suspect American education to be above and beyond, but unfortunately this is not the case.  America’s education system is simply not strong enough to hold the weight for a prosperous and golden future. 

            Studies prove that American students’ test scores have stagnated over the past few decades, and we are ranked behind many other countries.  For example an international student assessment in 2012 showed in math America ranked below 29 other nations.  In the same study reading in the United States ranked behind 19 other nations, and in science we were behind 22 nations.  Other countries are surpassing us in one of the most important aspects of maintaining a strong and able civilization.  If America wants any chance of staying as the top power in the world, we must focus on better educating our children in all parts of the country, in order to secure a bright future.

            The reasons for our downfall in education come from a variety of factors.  Once teachers have tenure, they are guaranteed to be able to keep their jobs, so even if they are bad at teaching, they cannot get fired except in certain scenarios. Incentives are needed to promote maximum effort, and tenure simply eliminates the motivation for teachers to do their jobs well.  Education is designed to make improve children’s intelligence and logic, but it makes no sense to guarantee pay for someone to do a job before they’ve done the job.  Some children who are stuck in bad school systems want to learn, but do not have a good teacher or resources to do so.  In these poorer schools and communities, it isn’t necessarily the teachers that are the problem; rather it is the poor learning environment or lack of resources that lead to children failing.  Poor schools make poor communities and vice versa, but if America needs to fix the worsening problem of education before it is too late.